Moving to Boston has kept me busy as I worked until the end of the school year at Cambridge Friends School as a substitute. Finding that school made this move feel right as I found a community where teachers and students welcomed me and I was able to reconnect to my Quaker background.

After the end of the school year, the majority of my family came to visit me, everyone fitting into my tiny apartment as we spent time together in parks watching little boys run around and seeing my growing nieces take care of them. In Boston, I’m constantly looking at more ways to find my community in terms of theater and other job opportunities as my friends in Boston have welcomed me. My fandom life has been full of Star Wars and Rogue One, where I’ve been writing fanfiction and finding the strength to look for ways to push against the dangerous currents in our government. A major sign for me that this was the right move is how creative I have been feeling, when I’m in a place that I feel I can grow, the words flow.

One of the pieces of writing that I’m happy to share is from the annual Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, RITA Reviewer challenge where I read Lone Heart Pass by Jodi Thomas. I found it to be a pleasant read but it didn’t really stick with me. What I did enjoy was reading the other review of the same book and the conversation in the comments. Communities and people where its possible to talk about the good and bad of the media we’re consuming are places I want to create and love being in. Boston has helped get me closer to people who I can have these discussions with as well as finding schools and libraries to help young people find communities for themselves.

Life has been busy for me in good ways and tricky ones. My family has been dealing with major health issues but I’ve recently been able to move to Boston. This move happened much faster than I expected as I found an apartment on the scouting visit at the start of February and was able to start moving near the end of February. Now its almost April and I’ve been applying for many types of jobs that I’ve always been interested in but hadn’t considered in a while such as being an educator or interpreter at a museum alongside teaching and library jobs. I love the possibilities that Boston with its culture of education and diversity presents.

As the world of politics is frightening and I’m doing what I can to advocate and make my voice heard. On January 21st, my mother and I were able to attend the Women’s March which gave me such hope. I’ve been watching how activism comes from different places, in Southern Delaware, meetings with the district at restaurants alongside social activism posts that detail how to best contact your reps.

I lost a world the other day.
Has anybody found?
You’ll know it by the row of stars
Around its forehead bound.
A rich man might not notice it;
Yet to my frugal eye
Of more esteem than ducats.
Oh, find it, sir, for me!Emily Dickinson

Almost
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.Emily Dickinson

Last week was a difficult one and when I found these poems after a disappointing movie about Emily Dickinson, they captured how I felt. A possible world is suddenly farther out of reach, I don’t know what’s going to happen. As I’ve been reading my various friends’ lists and hearing the fear and worry and knowing that I’m a fairly privileged position which means I need to find ways to step up. For me as an educator and librarian, that means teaching young people to be highly critical of the world around them, think about what sites they get their news from and to do all I can to promote and consume diverse media.

These past two weekends and week were the Rehoboth Film Festival and this year, many of the films felt like missed opportunities; not horrible, but not great. I’m going to start with the two films that actually made me incredibly happy and hopeful.

Fire Song is a film that felt like watching an incredibly well made contemporary YA novel come to life and was a perfect example of own voices. Fire Song happens within a small town in Northern Ontario with a focus on a hurting community of Anishnabe youth with at its center, Shane, a gay young man who’s sister recently committed suicide. This wasn’t an easy film to watch as it deals honestly with poverty, addiction, suicide, homophobia and sexual assault but the ending was hopeful.

The other film that made me smile was about the creation of Austin City Limits, a wonderful movie called A Song for You. This movie was made with the full cooperation of everyone involved in Austin City Limits and is full of music and wonderful pictures. One of my favorite aspects was how much the actual archive was highlighted as they showed where all the episodes are stored away. It made me smile because its a reminder of how a local show can become national while still having at its heart sharing good music.

The third film that I want to talk about is one that felt full of missed chances and also in some ways hit too close emotionally to what happened with the election. A Quiet Passion is a biographical movie about Emily Dickinson and it was frustrating. According to the Emily Dickinson Museum, she didn’t travel far from home throughout her life but carried on long term correspondence and did become reclusive in her later life. The movie takes this information and turns Emily into an unhappy and tragic figure with dialogue that feels recited.

Making a movie about a major author is always complicated and using their own words can be a wonderful way to let them speak for themselves, but how the words are spoken effects everything. A Quiet Passion uses Dickinson’s poetry along with what seemed to be inspired perhaps by letters and other writing, but seems to have forgotten that even in the 19th century, people don’t speak how they write. Becoming Jane was able to show a vibrant world and capture some of the life in Austen’s writing as Shakespeare in Love did as well. Both of those movies took inspiration from the words but didn’t use them as strictures. I left the movie wishing that Emily Dickinson’s life hadn’t been presented as so narrow, it felt a great disservice to her. The reason that it made me think of the election is that the movie was written and directed by a man who seems to have only chosen to see Emily Dickinson through one lens and not presented someone who feels real. This happened with Clinton who had articles written about her likability which didn’t seem balanced by her competence. I’m planning on reading Emily Dickinson biographies and more of her wonderful poetry to find out all I can about this amazing woman poet.

Pope Francis and Switzerland, two books I fact checked at the Scholastic Booth

This year when I went to ALA Annual, I had a chance to see my fact checking work in person and talk to people who know the work. When I walked by the Scholastic booth, I spotted covers of two books that I’d recently fact checked and stopped and stared. They’re in the picture; Pope Francis and Switzerland. When I struck up a conversation with the people at the booth, one of them actually knew Editorial Directions, the company I work for. It was one of the most gratifying moments for a job where the distance between my work and the product is huge.

The next day when I stopped at the booth, I had a longer conversation with another person from Scholastic about fact checking and was able to see and hold two books that I’d fact checked; Vultures and Cybercriminals. Then on Sunday, I think I had a wonderful bonus because for all of these books Scholastic has a website with added information and ebooks providing new ways to access the information.

I’m still smiling when I think of seeing and holding books that I played a part in. Every book that I fact check leaves me with knowledge of new sources and nuggets of facts. I love the process of learning and having a role in the reference materials that students use.

I’ve joined the masses who are hooked on Pokemon Go and so far its helped me discover places I didn’t know about and start up conversations.

This past Monday, I was volunteering at the beautiful new Lewes Public Library which officially opened on June 20th. Every time that I’ve been in either to help out or to look on my own, the library has been full. On this Monday morning, I began by sharing some of the wonderful posters I picked up at ALA Annual Conference to help decorate the space and discuss Pokemon Go. It turns out that there are two gyms near the library, two PokeStops across the railroad tracks at the old library, one was even at the Children’s Learning Garden where Maureen was headed to for a storytime.

Once Maureen went out to run the storytime, I didn’t have time to think of Pokemon as the Children’s section was busy. In the midst of shelving books, I was answering questions and seeing what the right space can do. There was a group of tween girls discussing book series that they love amid exclamations of ‘Have you read this one?’ Little kids were picking books by pulling them out and finding ones they enjoy. I love a busy library and it did take a while to get the shelving done but it was more important to answer every question.

When I finally left, I stopped by the library sign to check out the PokeStop and got into a conversation with two women in scrubs. I showed them where the PokeStop near the sign was and pointed out which was the Children’s Learning Garden was from where we were. After that, I walked around for a while, catching a few Pokemon before lunch then later stopping behind a motel to find a mural and a PokeStop. I think a lot of the set up of the stops is slightly random other than being in public places but for me, they’re getting me exploring. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game builds interaction in other places.

As part of this gorgeous labor day weekend, I volunteered at the book stall run by the Historic Lewes Farmers Market and sponsored by Daedalus Books. All of the books were connected to the market from cookbooks, books about raising animals, children’s books with plants and grown up coloring books. This year the market’s in a new setting as the park its been on for years on the grounds of the Lewes Historical Society is closed for renovations. Due to being in a park with a pond and paths, new people who might not have found the market were walking through. I love all the various connections that grow up around books as people comment on how they have that one, wondering about age level for others and their laughter as my father called out, “Get your red-hot books!”

Due to the partnership, there’s an element of surprise to which books will be there as the market doesn’t choose instead the bookseller does. As the table with the books was near the main entrance, it was a way to see the diverse community that comes through the market from visiting families to people with houses all drawn by berries, bread and oysters.

This year for the third time in a row, I’ve participated in the RITA Reader Challenge on Smart Bitches Trashy Books a romance website that is a wonderful community to discuss books and media. For the first time this year, the books I reviewed generated conversation in a way they haven’t before. I loved that as part of why I love reading this site is how the comments are always full of thoughtful talks of what people liked and didn’t like. A large number of the books on my phone are pulled from their recommendations and I’ve discovered new genres and authors from these conversations.

Toward the Sunrise by Elizabeth Camden was a novella that I reviewed and I liked it, but the second reviewer detailed major issues of Orientalism and racism within the story. The connection between the hero and the heroine is that both of them read Marco Polo’s adventures as children and it gave them a desire to travel to Asia. As I’ve often found online, this was a major moment for me to be quiet and listen to someone who felt a personal impact from the writing. This second reviewer showed how context is important as the novella was set in the 1890s when numerous conflicts between Europeans and countries throughout Asia happened creating scars that still remain. The comments were full of thoughtful discussions of how writers of historical fiction can balance the truth of history with an understanding of their readers.

The Marriage Contract by Katee Robert was my second review and this was a book focused on three Irish families involved in organized crime. In the comments of my review, it was interesting to see how others were put off by that aspect as well as the style of writing. I found it a gripping book which took on difficult topics and also had a charming romance, but not one for everyone.

I love how the internet has allowed for book discussions to grow from conversations at a market to online and how they continue and move off in unexpected ways.

One of my favorite parts of being a librarian is seeing when someone finds the book that they’ve wanted and needed. As an educator, I adore seeing how there isn’t just one place that a person can learn. In the past two weeks, I’ve seen kids falling in love with science and put the right books into the best hands.

Scholastic Book Fairs have a magic about them, the ones I attended in elementary school were held in the library. Weeks before, I’d fill out my form, debating which books I wanted and then they’d arrive, beautiful new books. Then I’d wander around the school library staring at all the other books, the erasers, the pens and pencils, the bookmarks, there waiting for me to choose them. Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to stand behind the register at a book fair and watch kids have that same experience. The shapes of the erasers have changed from fruits to smartphones and video game controllers, but the love of finding just that one is still there. I was impressed by how easy it was to come in and run the fair as well as how reasonable the prices were for books, 1 to 3 dollars for new paperbacks. The range of options from encyclopedias to every genre and pens that lit up or allowed secret writing. I know I was tempted by the Star Wars’ stickers and three dollars for the new Misty Copeland autobiography, but this time left with nothing for myself other than the joy of seeing kids buying what they wanted from the fair.

The second book day was an aftereffect of the Lewes Library preparing to move. Over the past few months, I’ve been helping Maureen, the head of Youth Services to weed the children’s library in preparation for shifting to the new space. I’ve found this a fascinating process of looking at what books don’t make sense to keep because they’re out of date nonfiction ones, there are multiple copies or they haven’t been taken out recently. Yesterday all thirty boxes of books ranging from board books to juvenile nonfiction were piled on tables and educators in the area were given a chance to take what they needed. In the course of the afternoon, teachers left with boxes and bags full of free books to help new families, fill classroom libraries and preschool libraries. It was wonderful to wander among them and see some of the kids who came along and recommend books I knew were good. Everything was free which made it even better as the teachers realized how these books could help their kids and then there would be space for newer copies and better editions in the library. At the end of the day, there were only eight boxes left which will find better homes and a few came home with me. I didn’t have a copy of The Queen of Attolia and picture books to send to my nephew.

Last week, I went to Boston as I’m planning on moving there in the near future. Southern Delaware is wonderful but there’s an energy in the Boston area along with many friends that will help me to do all that I want to do. Many of my favorite moments in Boston came from being in a place where people were excited to learn and share the joy of knowing something new. At the New England Aquarium, I heard kids and parents pulling each other to different exhibits and talked with a woman who loves her membership to the Aquarium. She was talking about the fur seals and how well she knew all of them. As I wandered into the bookstores and the gorgeous main Cambridge Public Library branch, I was reminded of the energy that comes from being in a place where everyone is looking at the world around them with the mixture that comes from the past and future alongside each other. Below is the wonderful Greenway carousel which was inspired by children’s drawings and connects science and fun.

One of the unexpected highlights of the trip was walking around Boston Common and seeing the preparations for the marathon, the booths waiting and what would be the starting line lying on the ground. Boston is a great city and one I plan on exploring more. As I keep looking for jobs, my net is still open wide and if a school or a library comes together in another city, I’ll grab it, but I’m planning on finding a way to live in the Boston area.